Contagion Option. Don Pendleton

and cut loose at the Executioner, but wounded and confused, his gunfire flew wildly. Pham yelled out and wrapped his arms around the sailor’s legs, throwing his balance off even more. Bolan snapped off three shots into the gunman’s head. The slugs crushed bone and burrowed into gray matter.

      The hold fell eerily silent.

      The Executioner retrieved his machine pistol and holstered it. He lowered the hammer on the handgun in his fist and walked over to the Vietnamese captive. He tapped his toe against Pham’s thigh.

      “You can let go. It’s over,” Bolan said.

      Pham looked up, eyes bloodshot, forehead damp with sweat. Hair was matted against his bronzed skin, and he took a deep breath.

      “Thanks for the assistance,” Bolan said, and helped Pham to his feet.

      “I don’t want to die,” the smuggler explained.

      Bolan looked at the pommel of his knife poking out the jaw of his third opponent, and considered the blade buried too deep to retrieve easily. He left it pinioned through the skull of the smuggler like some form of cannibalistic shish kebab. The man Pham had hit with the butt of his rifle hadn’t moved, and Bolan felt for a pulse. There was nothing, and the Asian’s neck rolled with nauseating ease on the floor at the slightest touch.

      “Broke his neck,” Bolan told him.

      Pham shrugged. “Eh. The bastard kept stealing my cigarettes.”

      Bolan shook his head. He looked at the containers and from the infrared scans of the ship, he knew which ones were occupied. He didn’t have an accurate map, but it was a good place to begin.

      Then he paused, looking into the darkness. The musky scent of livestock filled the air and he realized that half the containers that had registered heat were full of cattle.

      “Livestock?” Bolan asked.

      “Yeah,” Pham said, limping along. “I don’t get it, either. You’d think the Koreans would find an easier way to get hamburger meat.”

      Bolan frowned and looked at one of the livestock cars. An animal looked at him from within, large brown eyes blinking lazily in response. The soldier frowned. “These aren’t Thai livestock.”

      “I know,” Pham replied. “It’s weird. All kinds of cattle in Africa and the Middle East, even in Southeast Asia, and the Koreans want European or American stock.”

      Bolan looked at the limping smuggler. There was a long moment when Pham looked at the loaded revolver in a dead man’s fist, before stepping away. The Vietnamese smuggler had gotten the hint. One man against several, and he’d come out with only a few bruises, despite being disarmed at one point. If Pham had any fight left in him, he was reserving it for anyone who was going to screw up his survival, not the tall wraith who killed with bullets, blades and bare hands.

      “Come here, Pham,” Bolan said.

      The sentry limped over as Bolan pulled a plastic cable tie from his harness.

      “Turn around and hold your wrists behind you.”

      Pham nodded and Bolan pulled the cable tie firmly, but not painfully, around the Vietnamese man’s wrists. “You don’t want the girls to notice me?”

      “If there’s any fight in them, they’ll take it out on you,” Bolan said.

      “And I’m your messenger,” Pham replied.

      “Yeah.”

      Pham swallowed. “And you’re going to break my ankle.”

      “It’ll keep you out of the way,” Bolan replied. “Your dues for the pain you’ve caused.”

      Pham nodded. “Thanks.”

      Bolan leaned in close. “If we ever meet again, and you’re still on the wrong side, you won’t get a third chance.”

      With a stomp, Bolan snapped Pham’s ankle.

      The Vietnamese guard’s teeth ground against each other, but he reminded himself that he’d gotten off easy. He’d see the sun again. Coy and the others wouldn’t.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Park City, Utah

      Stan Reader looked up the tree-lined snow trail, cold air biting his cheeks. He took a deep breath, flexed his feet in his ski boots, then lurched forward, taking long loping strides to get up to speed.

      Reader cut a narrow path through the powdery snow, little rooster tails puffing up as he moved along. He bent back a pine branch and let it go, leaving a cloud of fine flakes in his wake. Reader then settled into his long, usual pace, ignoring the bounce of the stainless-steel Model 63 .22-caliber rifle against his back. The Taurus 63 was a relatively new rifle, and one he wouldn’t normally use in biathalon competition, but this was just a day for exploring new woods and plinking his rifle at impromptu targets, deftly keeping to the narrow trail between trees. Trunks rolled lazily at his slow, cross-country skiing pace, and Reader lost himself in the moment, his long lean legs and his ski poles swinging in a steady, repetitive motion. This was a one-man sport, and it allowed Reader to get some exercise while freeing his consciousness for other thoughts, such as complex physics formulas or mathematical equations. At various points, he would stop, unsling the rifle and take aim at a small target. On an official course, it would be a five-inch steel plate, and he’d have had to foster his endurance so that his breathing and heartbeat wouldn’t throw off his aim of the sensitive .22 target rifle.

      Off to his right, another figure lurched into view, keeping pace with him. It was Kirby Graham, his best friend from college and the military. The big, brawny FBI agent skied alongside Reader for about thirty yards before they spotted an outcropping.

      “Race ya, Stretch,” Graham said.

      Reader smirked and increased the pace, loping along, arms digging in with the poles to spread the effort of motion to all of his limbs. Graham was bigger, so he had a longer gait that could drive him faster, but Reader, despite being tall, was lean and gangly enough that his wind resistance was lower. Reader sliced ahead of Graham, then cut around the outcropping. There was a dropoff, and the biathlete slashed through the powder for thirty feet. Since gravity was doing its thing, Reader allowed his limbs to relax as he plummeted down the slope at full speed, only switching and altering his balance to keep from crashing into pine tree trunks in his path. Landing upright on crosscountry skis was a testament to his skill.

      Stan Reader was a polymath. By age twenty-four, he’d earned degrees in four different sciences, was a pilot and had managed to be an alternate on the Olympic biathalon team. Reader had put his scientific knowledge to good use in the United States Navy, serving on a nuclear aircraft carrier as an engineer. During his military career, the brilliant young man had also become an expert marksman with both handguns and rifles, competing against Marines and Navy SEALs in both sponsored competition or just shooting for cases of beer.

      Graham, one of the Marines Reader had competed against, grumbled that Stan would never need to buy another alcoholic drink for the rest of his life, thanks to everyone who had lost to him. Graham had been an F-18 jockey, spending the early part of his career risking his life enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zone and splashing four MiGs before being signed on for the Navy Blue Angels. After that, Graham mustered out and joined the FBI as a special agent. But it wasn’t competition that had forged their friendship.

      Reader had been a sixteen-year-old geek in college, easy prey for bullies and frat boys. Graham had been a football player in danger of losing his scholarship. They were unlikely roommates, the skinny, nerdy Reader and the big, gruff Graham. But, Reader had helped focus Graham’s studies, putting him on the honor roll. And nobody wanted to give Reader any trouble with a brick wall like Graham as a guardian angel. It was Graham who’d introduced Reader to skiing in New York state, and to rifle shooting. The biathalon was a wonderful mix of the two sports Reader fell in love with. Long, quiet hours, in quiet serenity across snows, punctuated by a display of marksmanship